by Alexey Pehov
The inn was as dreary and unprepossessing as all the other houses in Upper Otters. There was a tin signplate hanging above the door, but I couldn’t make out what was written on it—it was too old, the paint had worn off ages ago, and the innkeeper hadn’t bothered to paint it again.
“Wait here,” said Alistan Markauz, jumping down into the mud and holding out his reins to Marmot. “Let’s go, Honeycomb.”
They went into the house, leaving us outside, soaking in the rain. Deler was groaning, dreaming about a hot fire and hot food. Hallas asked the dwarf to be quiet in a most unusually polite manner.
Alistan and Honeycomb came back out looking glum and angry.
“The inn’s closed, we can’t spend the night here. Nobody in the village sells anything, especially not horses. They have less than a dozen of them.”
“And if we insist?” Egrassa inquired.
“I think, my cousin, that that is not a good way to win the love of men,” Miralissa replied to the elf.
Egrassa’s face made it clear what he thought of the love of men.
“But will they let us in for the night or not?” Bass interrupted. “I’m sick to death of this rain!”
“We’re all sick of the rain,” Honeycomb boomed as he mounted his horse. “Milord Alistan, perhaps we could try to find a place in the houses? Someone might agree to take us in for five pieces of gold?”
“It’s not worth the risk. The innkeeper said these are Balistan Pargaid’s lands.”
Marmot swore out loud.
“Let’s get out of here.”
But before we had gone a hundred yards, the street was blocked off by a crowd. A surly, angry, silent crowd. Almost all the inhabitants of the village were there, and many of them were holding pitchforks, axes, scythes, flails, or clubs.
“Oi!” the jester squealed quietly.
I immediately looked back—the road was blocked off by two wagons. Very smart.
“What is the problem?” Alistan Markauz shouted.
The man we had seen with the ax stepped forward out of the crowd.
“We don’t want any trouble!”
“We are leaving the village, let us through!”
“Gladly, but first throw down your weapons and give us the horses!”
“What!” roared Hallas, waving his mattock in the air. “No gnome hands over his weapon to a pack of mangy, stinking peasants. Never!”
The crowd began buzzing threateningly and moving toward us.
“We’ll break through,” said Alistan Markauz, striking his horse on the hindquarters with the flat of his sword.
The massive warhorse bounded forward at the men and flattened the ones who were at the front. The sword flashed, repulsing a blow from a flail. The peasants howled and ran in all directions.
I set Little Bee moving forward, trying not to fall behind the others. Our group sliced through the peasants like a hot knife through butter. Those who were too slow to jump aside were trampled.
One lad there almost managed to stick a pitchfork in my side. But Hallas split his head open with his mattock before I even had time to feel afraid. A second later, I had broken out of the crowd, desperately pounding my heel against Little Bee’s sides and leaning down low on her neck.
The menacing cries were left behind and we hurtled along the line of gloomy gray houses, keen to get out of this cursed village as quickly as possible. What had gotten into them? I wondered. There was a kind of crossroads ahead of us, with about fifteen men standing directly in our path. Unlike the peasants, though, these men were armed with lances and bows. And they were dressed a lot better, too—in wool and steel.
Alistan set his horse hurtling to the left, past the lances held out toward him. Miralissa managed to burn up one of our enemies with a spell. While the rest of them were blinking their eyes and yelling in fear, our group darted past after Alistan. I was galloping along last but one, immediately after Hallas, and I saw the sharp tips of the lances flash by just five inches from my face. Little Bee reared up on her hind legs and whinnied. It was a miracle that I wasn’t thrown out of the saddle into the mud.
“Oh, bravo!” roared Bass, when he saw that the road to the left was already blocked off by men with lances.
With an effort, I managed to make Little Bee follow Snoop’s horse. The two of us would have to break through together. Now we were galloping in the opposite direction from our comrades. I heard the twang of bowstrings behind me, and one of the arrows whistled past just above my ear and bit into the hindquarters of Bass’s horse, which was galloping ahead of me. It reared up and threw its rider to the ground.
“Take my hand!” I shouted, leaning down in the saddle as I dashed up to him.
Snoop grabbed hold of my hand and jumped; I tossed him up onto Little Bee behind me and he clung on to me like a leech.
“We have to get out of this place! Move!”
I didn’t need to be asked twice. Arrows whistled through the air again, but this time they missed. We galloped the entire length of the village without coming across anyone at all from our side or the other.
I only pulled up Little Bee when Upper Otters was far behind us, hidden behind the curtain of rain.
“Unfriendly fellows, why were they so upset with us?”
“We could go back and ask them,” said Bass, jumping down off Little Bee.
“We have to find the others.”
“In this rain? You won’t even notice them until you trip over them.”
“And what do you suggest?”
“I’d make a run for it, if we weren’t so deep in the Borderland. But you can’t get far on your own here.”
I dismounted from Little Bee and turned toward him:
“You’re wrong, we have to find the others as soon as possible. The village is over that way, we have to circle round until we come across the group.”
“Two of us on one horse?” he said, turning round and looking thoughtfully in the direction of Upper Otters.
And that was when I saw it.
Two arrows were sticking out of Bass’s back. Shafts as thick as a finger, with white flights—one was stuck right under his left shoulder blade, and the other was a lot lower and farther to the right. The heart and the liver. Nobody lives with wounds like that. But Snoop didn’t seem to feel any pain or know that the arrows were there, and there wasn’t a single drop of blood on his clothes.
“So what do you think? Harold, I’m talking to you!”
“What?”
Something must have shown in my eyes, because Bass looked at me keenly and asked:
“What’s wrong, old friend?”
“You know,” I said warily, “those lads were good shots, after all.”
“Why do you say that? We’re still alive, aren’t we?”
“You’ve got two arrows sticking out of your back. Can’t you feel them?”
Keeping his eyes on me, he felt for one of the arrows behind his back and chuckled grimly.
“Darkness! If only you knew what bad timing this is,” Bass said with a crooked grin, and then, suddenly appearing right behind me, he punched me in the solar plexus.
Little Bee whinnied in fright and shied. I doubled over and fell down.
“All I had to do was watch you and tell the woman where you were,” Snoop said, with a pitiful note in his voice. “Now the Master will punish me.”
I felt my heart skip a beat.
Bass had no eyes anymore; where the pupils and irises ought to be, there was a sea of darkness. His eyes were like the eyes of the old man from the Master’s prison.
The knife sprang into my hand of its own accord and I sank the long blade into his belly, but he didn’t make a sound. I didn’t notice how he hit me, the pain just exploded in my chest, even under the chain mail, and I was on the ground again.
“You know,” Snoop said in a bored voice as he pulled my knife out of his stomach and weighed it in his hand, “Markun’s lads really did drop me in the water under the pier that day wh
en I stole the money from you and For. I was unlucky. Being dead is very bad, Harold. But the Master brought me back to life, I became a Soulless One, and all I had to do was keep an eye on you. Well, now what are we going to do with you?”
Zing! A black arrow hit him in the heart.
Zing! An arrow in the throat.
Zing! An arrow in the belly.
Ell was standing no more than ten yards away from us, methodically shooting arrow after arrow into Bass.
It was pointless!
“I’m not that easy to kill,” Bass growled, flinging himself at the elf. “I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time!”
Ell threw his bow aside and took his s’kash off his shoulder. My knife was a lot shorter than this crooked blade, but that didn’t worry Snoop at all, and he pounced on the elf like a spring hurricane.
Heavy breathing, flashing blades, the clash of steel on steel. Bass lost his left arm from the elbow down, but he kept attacking. Not a drop of blood oozed from the stump, and his black eyes remained impassive.
I planted a crossbow bolt in the back of his head and it passed right through. But this didn’t upset the Soulless One at all.
I remembered what the Messenger had told Lafresa.
“Ell!” I shouted as I reloaded the crossbow. “His head! Cut off his head!”
Bass roared, turned away from his opponent, and came running at me with the knife. The elf dashed up to him from behind, the crooked sword whistled through the air and severed the head of what had once been my friend from its body.
The head fell into the mud and rolled away. The body, with the arrows stuck in it, waved its remaining arm desperately from side to side, trying to catch one of us with the knife. The foul beast was still alive and dangerous.
Ell jumped across to the head and struck twice at the black eyes with a dagger drawn from the top of his boot. There was a sound like an eggshell breaking, the eyes burst, and the body twitched convulsively once again before it collapsed into a puddle and lay still.
Wasting no time, the elf went across to the body and, using his s’kash again, started dismembering it, cutting off the other arm and the legs. I was still standing there with my crossbow lowered when Ell handed me back my knife. I took it warily, looked it over, and put it back in the scabbard. There wasn’t a single drop of blood on the blade.
“I never did like him.” Ell’s yellow eyes glinted.
“What was that?” I asked, dumbfounded.
“One kind of ghoul created from someone who is dead. A faithful servant. They think, talk, eat, and they remember everything that happened to them before they died. It is almost impossible to tell them apart from ordinary people. Ask Miralissa if you want to know more.”
“How did you find us?”
“I told you, I never did like him,” Ell repeated. “Catch your horse and let’s go. The rain’s getting worse.”
I whistled to Little Bee. It was a trick that Kli-Kli taught me. The horse was still frightened and she squinted at the dead man lying in the puddle, but she came to me when I called.
“Thank you,” I said as I climbed into the saddle. “You saved my skin today.”
“I hope I do not have to feel sorry about it,” said Ell.
“What are you talking about?”
“I can see how you look at Miralissa.”
“Isn’t that my business?” I asked softly.
“When it touches dark elves then it is not only your business. You do realize that both of you have nothing in common? You’re a man and she is an elf. You’re a thief, she is possibly an heir to the throne. Our traditions do not allow anything like that. I advise you as a friend, do not overstep the line. If you do not think about yourself, then think about her. Everyone will get in trouble.”
I looked at Ell and said:
“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t do that to her.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I hope our conversation will remain confidential.”
“Of course,” I said drily. “I promise.”
He didn’t answer, just nodded. I rode round the Soulless One’s body and didn’t look back once all the way to our group.
12
THE JUDGMENT OF SAGRA
After Upper Otters, the weather started to improve. The gods in the heavens snapped their fingers and in a single night a strong wind drove the clouds away. The sun peeped out in the morning and started drying out the land with its warm caress, freeing it of all that superfluous moisture. I was finally able to take off my cloak and revel in the glorious weather.
According to Alistan Markauz, our detachment was due to reach the Border Kingdom before that evening. With a bit of luck and some help from the gods, we ought to come across one of the garrisons—in the Borderland no one would refuse us shelter for the night.
After the incident with Bass, Miralissa spent a long time asking me questions about what had happened. The elfess nodded knowingly and exchanged glances with Kli-Kli, who rode up to join us, but she didn’t make any comments; at the end of my story all she said was:
“As you humans say, you were born under a lucky star.”
And that was the end of the conversation. Neither she nor the goblin condescended to explain anything to me.
I waited for the right moment and approached Ell. The elf gave me a surprised look, but waited for me to start the conversation.
“Ell … I…”
“Don’t bother, Harold, your gratitude is not that important to me.”
“That wasn’t actually what I wanted to talk about,” I said, embarrassed.
“No?” A quick glance. “Well, now you intrigue me. Go on.”
“You’re from the House of the Black Rose.… I know this question might surprise you, but do you know anything about Djok the Winter-Bringer?”
“The prince-killer? Every child in our house knows about him. A magnificent story to encourage hatred of the human race.” He grinned and I couldn’t tell if he was joking or serious.
“What happened to him?”
“He was executed.”
“That’s what you tell outsiders, but what really happened to him?”
“You are an outsider yourself,” Ell replied harshly, then he paused and asked: “Why are you so interested in this?”
“I had a dream in which he wasn’t executed. At least, not in the way that was planned.”
“If you’ve had a dream, then why are you asking me?” the yellow-eyed elf asked. “That young lad was lucky; some soft-hearted individual slit his throat from ear to ear.”
The elf ran his fingers across his own throat to show how it was done.
“We don’t like to go into that story very much. Djok managed to slip through the fingers of our executioners just before the actual execution. A lucky bastard. We never found out who dispatched him into the darkness. There was a rumor that one of the orcs crept in and played a joke on us. But I don’t really believe that.”
“And…”
“Harold, it was more than six hundred years ago, there have been so many generations, and you want me to remember the old men’s stories? I don’t know any more than that.”
“I understand … but couldn’t you tell straightaway that he wasn’t guilty?”
“You know the saying anger clouds the judgment? You humans looked for … er, what do you call it … a scapegoat. Why bother trying to find the guilty party if the elf was killed by Djok’s arrow? Or an arrow very much like his? Your people had a choice. Either try to find the real killer and get involved in a war, or sacrifice one human life and forget the whole thing. Your king at the time acted wisely—the scapegoat was found, the arrow was shown in court, there was a confession, even if it was beaten out of him, witnesses…”
He pulled a wry face.
“My ancestors were no better, grief and fury clouded their reason, and we wanted revenge for what happened in Ranneng, even if the man accused wasn’t guilty. We tried to question him further, but after your beatings and our tortures �
� He just kept begging us not to beat him … At the time he had been found guilty; it was only three months later that they started digging deeper and discovered it was a different archer and Djok was somewhere else at the time.”
“A different archer?”
“You people don’t like to talk about your mistakes any more than we elves do. He confessed. Voluntarily. Came and told us how it all happened, where he had been hiding. How he fired. The only thing he didn’t say was why he did it.”
“He?”
“The real killer.”
“Did no one think that he was simply a madman with nothing better to do?”
“How would I know, Harold? Perhaps that’s how it really was.”
“But it was too late. Djok was already dead.”
Ell shrugged.
“One human life wasn’t very important.”
“You’re wrong,” I said quietly. “You don’t know what happened because of that terrible mistake.”
“Oh?” He looked hard at me. “Then tell me, if I’m so stupid.”
“Forget it, it’s just idle talk now.”
The elf nodded and immediately forgot about our conversation.
But I didn’t. Now I knew who, what, and why.
* * *
Milord Alistan decided to send out scouts, and now Eel and Marmot moved off far to the right or the left, in search of possible danger. So far all was quiet, and I personally would have been perfectly happy for the peace and quiet to continue for a long, long time, all the way to Hrad Spein, but all good things come to an end. Marmot came back in the afternoon and reported that there was an armed detachment moving in our direction.
“Horsemen,” he reported to Milord Rat. “About a hundred or a hundred and twenty, maybe more. All wearing armor. About half a league from here.”
“Balistan Pargaid’s men!”
“They don’t look like his, but I could be wrong, it was too far to see.”
“Did they see you?”
“You offend me, milord.” Marmot chuckled. “If we hurry, we can still get away and avoid them.”